The Knight house

A look inside the newly renovated Herrmann House, now the home of Lansing Community College President Brent Knight, and what it took to get there

When Lansing Community College President
Brent Knight wakes up in the morning, $900,000 worth of historic
renovations greet him outside of his canopy-style bed.

It’s a new morning vision for Knight, who
earlier this month moved into the 5,000-square-foot Hermann House —
built in 1893 and purchased by LCC in 1966 — at 520 N. Capitol Ave.
Nearly 50 years and $900,000 later, it is Knight’s home — the first LCC
president to live on campus.

Designed by Lansing architect J. Arthur
Bailey, the eclectic home showing both Tudor and Romanesque
architectural influences was built for John T. Herrmann, a Lansing
tailor from Germany, for $5,000. LCC purchased the house from a family
member for $76,500 in 1966. Architecture
students studied the design, home economics students used the kitchen
and photography students used a basement darkroom. Dubbed the Hermann
Conference Center in the 1980s, it was designated as a state historic
site in 1987. In recent years, though, the house was used sparingly as
office and meeting space.

To make the space livable for Knight, the
house needed extensive renovations. The original estimate for
renovating the house was $300,000 as part of improvements to the college
campus, but that number nearly tripled in December to just under
$900,000. To make up the difference, LCC
spokeswoman Ellen Jones said $500,000 would come from an LCC Foundation
fund earmarked for capital projects. She said other capital improvement
projects on campus are coming in under budget and will provide the rest
of the money.

City Pulse recently got a top to bottom tour of the three-story home with Jones.

The first thing to greet you as you walk
in the doors is what many might consider a work of art — the staircase,
which has a presence that fills the empty room. The oak railings look as
if they haven’t been touched by the passage of time. Carved into the
north wall is an open-jawed lion head, whose roar serves as the base
between the wall and the railing. When you look up the stairs, you can
see original stained-glass windows colored with mahogany, gold and a
faded pink that line the top of five vertical windows at the landing of
the stairs.

The large living room is void of
furniture, but long rows of sheets lined portions of the floor to keep
mud and dirt off the new carpeting as people walked through. The walls
have oak panels starting at the floor that lead halfway up, which greet a
reserved golden-taupe colored paint, again leading to oak ceiling trim
that lines the perimeter of the walls. The living room used to be a
parlor, Jones said, but in the 1920s a wall was removed to give the room
more space. Four large windows line the west-facing portion of the
living room, looking out onto Capitol Avenue. Jones said some of the
home’s original furniture would be used in the living room.

Right next to the stairs in the living
room you’ll see the fireplace surrounded by tan square tiles. A
horizontal mirror covers the top of it. On either side of the mantel are
more carved lion heads. These ones are more subdued, rather than
roaring; they’re simply holding a steady gaze.

The living room has two doorways that
lead into the dining room, which has the same kinds of walls as the
living room. There are two lighting fixtures that Jones said are
original. Recessed can lights dot the outer edges of the room. The
Knights have brought in their own dining table and chairs. Pocket doors
allow you to separate the dining room from the living room.

The modern kitchen looks like it belongs
in a Lowe’s showroom, not a Victorian home. The silver toned appliances
are all brand new, Jones said.

The family room, which Jones said was an
addition in the ‘90s and was paid for by Christian Herrmann Jr.,
grandson of the original owner, is to the right of the kitchen. Like the
kitchen, it is a modern-looking space with windows at every turn, a
fireplace and high ceilings that culminate into a white, hexagonal,
vaulted ceiling with three skylights. The Knights have put some
furniture and a flat screen TV in the room.

The Knights will occupy the dining room,
kitchen, family room and second and third floors. The living room and
dining room may serve as public areas for small college receptions,
Jones said.

Upstairs, a narrow hallway serves as a link to a guest
bedroom, a bathroom and the master bedroom. The bathroom has original
tiling that’s made up of white rectangles in a slanted pattern. Jones
said the tiles were in “remarkably good shape” when renovations started.

The master bedroom had a few pieces of the Knights’
furniture as well as a canopy bed that fit well with the era of the
house. Pink tiles lined the floor, walls and ceilings of the bathroom — a
few of which were cracked — as well as the walk-in, closet-like shower.

The third, west-facing bedroom on the
second floor has been converted into an office and sitting room. It’s
here where renovators found that some of the beams were so old that that
portion of the house would have eventually collapsed if extensive
repairs hadn’t been done, Jones said. They had to brace the wall and
ceiling from top to bottom and brought in brick masons to repair the
damage, she said.

To get to the third floor, you have to walk through
Knight’s office, which is a small space at the base of stairs leading to
the top floor.

No art or photographs had been hung up as of yet. All of the walls were versions of taupe colors or white.

The stairs heading to the third floor pale in comparison
to the main stairwell. The wood looks like it belongs in a row of church
pews. Jones said the upstairs was converted from an attic into a
meeting space around the ‘60s. This loft-like space is the most
furnished of the entire house; it looks like it will serve as another
family room. It has a hotel room-style kitchen and bathroom as well.

The $900,000 price tag has raised eyebrows.

“When I heard
about the price I was horrified,” Gretchen Cochran of Preservation
Lansing said. “But I have been told that when they opened the walls,
they discovered large amounts of rot that simply had to be reamed out
and redone.”

Cochran lives not far away in a restored, 125-year-old
home, about the same age as the Herrmann House. She has toured the main
floor of the house. She said when you refurbish historic homes, the cost
can come as a surprise.

“I know that anytime you open up a building that is old,
it’s like Christmas morning: There are always some surprises — some
wonderful, but some are not so wonderful,” she said.

The 118-year-old sanitary sewer pipe needed new lining. A
hodgepodge of electrical systems needed to be replaced. Rotted
structural beams and a termite damaged subfloor needed repair. The house
is designated a state historical site, which means repairs had to be
made to keep the historical integrity of the house intact — adding to
the cost of repairs. It’s not as simple as replacing a broken window
with a new one, Jones said. The window must be removed and repaired or
even recreated to fit the decor of the house.

Renovations began last summer, Jones said, and wrapped up
at year’s end. Contractors who worked on the renovations included Moore
Trosper Construction Co., Kendall Electric, Ferguson (plumbing),
Integrity (plaster), Standard Electric and Siemens.

Along with the house, the Knights are being provided with on-campus parking, Jones said. Although she wouldn’t
say where for “security reasons,” she said a physical plant storage
area was cleared out to serve as a covered and locked garage for Knight
and his wife, Risť.

Knight moved into the Herrmann House at the request of the LCC Board of Trustees, board Chairman Larry Meyer said.

“We’ve got the boss downtown now,” Meyer said. “It’s a very good thing to do.”